To say that Senator Whitredge was startled and uncomfortable would be to put his case mildly. He had never before seen Mr. Vane in this mood. “Ha-ha!” he laughed; “the years are coming over us a little, aren't they? But I guess it isn't quite time for the youngsters to step in yet.” “No, Whitredge,” said Mr. Vane, slowly, without taking his eye from the senator's, “and it won't be until this convention is over. Do you understand?” “That's the first good news I've heard this morning,” said the senator, with the uneasy feeling that, in some miraculous way, the Honourable Hilary had read the superseding orders from highest authority through his pocket. “You may take it as good news or bad news, as you please, but it's a fact. And now I want 'YOU' to tell Ridout that I wish to see him again, and to bring in Doby, who is to be chairman of the convention.” “Certainly,” assented the senator, with alacrity, as he started for the door. Then he turned. “I'm glad to see you're all right, Vane,” he added; “I'd heard that you were a little under the weather--a bilious attack on account of the heat--that's all I meant.” He did not wait for an answer, nor would he have got one. And he found Mr. Ridout in the hall. “Well?” said the lawyer, expectantly, and looking with some curiosity at the senator's face. “Well,” said Mr. Whitredge, with marked impatience, “he wants to see you right away.” All day long Hilary Vane held conference in Number Seven, and at six o'clock sent a request that the Honourable Adam visit him. The Honourable Adam would not come; and the fact leaked out--through the Honourable Adam. “He's mad clean through,” reported the Honourable Elisha Jane, to whose tact and diplomacy the mission had been confided. “He said he would teach Flint a lesson. He'd show him he couldn't throw away a man as useful and efficient as he'd been, like a sucked orange.” “Humph! A sucked orange. That's what he said, is it? A sucked orange,” Hilary repeated. “That's what he said,” declared Mr. Jane, and remembered afterwards how Hilary had been struck by the simile.